Trump Lashes Out Over Russia Special Counsel

WASHINGTON (CN) – Hours after releasing a measured response toward the Justice Department’s appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 election, President Donald Trump took to Twitter Thursday morning to pan the decision and paint himself as a victim.

“This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!” he proclaimed in a tweet posted shortly before 8 a.m.

This after a tweet in which he complained, “With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special counsel appointed!”

The president offered no evidence to support his claims that Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Obama administration had committed acts that would warrant investigation by special counsel.

On Wednesday evening, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced that former FBI chief Robert Mueller will now oversee the investigation.

Mueller led the FBI from 2001 to 2013, serving immediately prior to James Comey, who President Trump fired last week.

The administration offered a subdued statement in response to Mueller’s appointment.

“As I have stated many times, a thorough investigation will confirm what we already know – there was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity,” the statement said. “I look forward to this matter concluding quickly. In the meantime, I will never stop fighting for the people and the issues that matter most to the future of our country,” it concluded.

The pair of tweets marked the third time in a week that Trump has veered from the messaging of his administration.

Last Tuesday administration officials scrambled to explain Comey’s firing. The White House initially said that President Trump had fired Comey based on the recommendations that Rosenstein presented in a Justice Department memo, which criticized the ousted director’s performance — particularly his probe of Clinton’s use of a private email server.

Two days later, however, the president told NBC’s Lester Holt in a televised interview that he was going to fire Comey “regardless.” He also indicated that the Russia investigation had factored into his decision.

And on Monday, the White House vigorously denied that President Trump had revealed highly classified information to Russian officials during a White House meeting last week, which the Washington Post reported on Monday.

On Tuesday, the president undercut that messaging when he tweeted that he had wanted to share that information with Russia.